In 1937, A. Turing proved that a "universal digital computer", having a finite number of components could be realized. This Universal Turing Machine (UTM) could be achieved by decoding information stored on it by an arbitrarily long input tape. Later, John von Neumann applied Turing's thesis to the design of what became the first modern SIMD (single instruction multiple data path) computer architecture. Von Neumann's computational engine was realized as combinations of three elements: memory, processor and switch (MPS structures) which included electronic transistor and diode logic based Boolean digital logic elements (radix=2).
In such prior art electronics components, indicated in FIG. 1, the hardware elements are supported by an instruction set architecture. This instruction set and its associated encode/decode hardware architecture, provide the operational codes (OP Code) and data flow instructions necessary for general purpose arithmetical, logical, and data flow control programming. Later, researchers extended the von Neumann architecture to parallel, or multiple instruction, multiple data path (MIMD) architectures.
The advent of photonics led to massively parallel optical computer concepts which carried the Turing thesis further, but lacked the general purpose programmability of the older digital hardware. Thus, the virtually infinite signal/data bandwidth of the photonic (or optical) computer remains to date an under utilized advantage of photonics. Because of the lack of a general purpose programmable instruction set architecture, optical computers have not emerged as viable contenders for SIMD or MIMD digital computers--these hardware realizations (e.g. optical neural networks are relegated to special purpose processing tasks such as optical signal processing. That is, optical computers have served only as add-ons to electronic computers.
For examples of optical special purpose computers, see U.S. Pat. No. 4,910,699 to Capps et al (1990), U.S. Pat. No. 4,948,959 to Houk et al (1990) and U.S. Pat. No. 4,387,989 to Pirich (1983). Inherent in the above optical systems is a lack of dynamic programmability and general purpose computability. Thus the linking of electronic computers with special purpose optical signal processors is the current state of the prior art.
Also electronic computer systems require considerable electric power, often have limited data capacity and can be relatively slow and there is a need and market for a general purpose computer that exhibits marked improvement in all three of these categories.
There has now been discovered a general purpose quantum computer that provides for the creation of an instruction set architecture and thus a dynamically programmable photonic universal Turing machine (UTM).